Living wage

A living wage is the minimum income necessary for a worker to meet their basic needs. Needs are defined to include food, housing, and other essential needs such as clothing. The goal of a living wage is to allow a worker to afford a basic but decent standard of living. Due to the flexible nature of the term 'needs', there is not one universally accepted measure of what a living wage is and as such it varies by location and household type.Servants, labourers and workmen of different kinds, make up the far greater part of every great political society. But what improves the circumstances of the greater part can never be regarded as an inconvenience to the whole. No society can surely be flourishing and happy, of which the far greater part of the members are poor and miserable. It is but equity, besides, that they who feed, clothe, and lodge the whole body of the people, should have such a share of the produce of their own labour as to be themselves tolerably well fed, clothed and lodged.No business which depends for existence on paying less than living wages to its workers has any right to continue in this country.Universal Declaration of Human Rights, Art. 23 Sec. 3(LCU)(US$) A living wage is the minimum income necessary for a worker to meet their basic needs. Needs are defined to include food, housing, and other essential needs such as clothing. The goal of a living wage is to allow a worker to afford a basic but decent standard of living. Due to the flexible nature of the term 'needs', there is not one universally accepted measure of what a living wage is and as such it varies by location and household type. A living wage, in some nations such as the United Kingdom and New Zealand, generally means that a person working 40 hours a week, with no additional income, should be able to afford the basics for a modest but decent life, such as, food, shelter, utilities, transport, health care, and child care. Living wage advocates have further defined a living wage as the wage equivalent to the poverty line for a family of four. The income would have to allow the family to 'secure food, shelter, clothing, health care, transportation and other necessities of living in modern society'. A definition of a living wage used by the Greater London Authority (GLA) is the threshold wage, calculated as an income of 60% of the median, and an additional 15% to allow for unforeseen events. The living wage differs from the minimum wage in that the latter is set by national law and can fail to meet the requirements to have a basic quality of life which leaves the family to rely on government programs for additional income. Living wages, on the other hand, have typically only been adopted in municipalities. In economic terms, the living wage is similar to the minimum wage as it is a price floor for labor. In the 1990s, the first contemporary living wage campaigns were launched by community initiatives in the US addressing increasing poverty faced by workers and their families. They argued that the employee, employer, and community all benefited with a living wage. Employees would be more willing to work, helping the employer reduce worker turnover, and it would help the community when the citizens have enough to have a decent life. These campaigns came about partially as a response to Reaganomics and Thatcherism in the US and UK, respectively, which shifted macroeconomic policy towards neoliberalism. A living wage, by increasing the purchasing power of low income workers, is supported by Keynesian and post-Keynesian economics which focuses on stimulating demand in order to improve the state of the economy. The concept of a living wage, though it was not defined as such, can be traced back to the works of ancient Greek philosophers such as Plato and Aristotle. Both argued for an income that considers needs, particularly those that ensure the communal good. Aristotle saw self-sufficiency as a requirement for happiness which he defined as, ‘that which on its own makes life worthy of choice and lacking in nothing’. As he placed the responsibility in ensuring that the poor could earn a sustainable living in the state, his ideas are seen as an early example of support for a living wage. The evolution of the concept can be seen later on in medieval scholars such as Thomas Aquinas who argued for a 'just wage'. The concept of a just wage was related to that of just prices, which were those that allowed everyone access to necessities. Prices and wages that prevented access to necessities were considered unjust as they would imperil the virtue of those without access. In Wealth of Nations, Adam Smith recognized that rising real wages lead to the 'improvement in the circumstances of the lower ranks of people' and are therefore an advantage to society. Growth and a system of liberty were the means by which the laboring poor were able to secure higher wages and an acceptable standard of living. Rising real wages are secured by growth through increasing productivity against stable price levels, i.e. prices not affected by inflation. A system of liberty, secured through political institutions whereupon even the 'lower ranks of people' could secure the opportunity for higher wages and an acceptable standard of living. Based on these writings, Smith advocated that labor should receive an equitable share of what labor produces. For Smith, this equitable share amounted to more than subsistence. Smith equated the interests of labor and the interests of land with overarching societal interests. He reasoned that as wages and rents rise, as a result of higher productivity, societal growth will occur thus increasing the quality of life for the greater part of its members.